According to the LR service schedule it advises that the road wheels, after removal are refitted to opposite sides of the same axle.

The wear on my tyres are 6mm on the front and 7mm on the rear.

Is it advisable to swap the front wheels with the rear wheels to have the greater tyre depth on the front.

I have heard of swapping front to rear to equalise wear but never side to side. I have been told that once a radial tyre has been used it shouldn't be refitted to rotate in the opposite direction.

I did swap front to back once on a Volvo and it felt terrible. I went back to the fitter who said he wasn't surprised and swapped them back for me (for a small charge ) which curred the problem. GONE - '07 TD4 GS manual Zermatt Silver
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What you say Iliacus makes sense and refitting road wheels to opposite sides of the same axle should not be done if you have uni-directional tyres fitted.

I have Goodyear Wranglers so not sure if they are uni-directional or not and do not know how to find out. Maybe some techie on here will come up with the answer.

They will have an arrow on them with the word 'direction' or 'rotation' on them next to the arrow. The arrow must point in the direction the wheel will rotate when rolling forwards. They can only be swapped to the other side if removed from rims, rotated and then refitted. The other tyres may be asymmetric and will have 'outside' marked on them which must face the, errr, outside of the vehicle. They can be swapped to the other side with no problems. Any tyres with no markings are symmetric and can also be swapped from side to side with no problems. Just make sure you don't have a uni directional tyre as your spare - you've only got a 50/50 chance of being able to use it legally! Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
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Brilliant, thanks for the good infor and advice

Steve D - what's your evidence for using a unidirectional tyre the wrong way round being illegal? I've never seen any legislation to that effect (and in fact it's more or less standard practice in the army, owing to the incompetence of the fitters...).
I would agree that radial tyres can become "handed" once fitted - I once cured a steering problem by simply swapping the front tyres round.
And no I wouldn't swap front to back on this occasion, as the best tyres should always be on the back.

Well, as an MOT tester I know a car will definitely not pass an MOT test with a uni directional or asymmetrical tyre fitted not in accordance with the manufacturers markings on the sidewall and I'm assuming that would make it illegal. Can't quote the exact law that would be broken, if any. I do know that cars can pass the mot test but still be illegal the minute they go on the road though so perhaps the opposite may also apply eg fail the test but be legal to drive on the road. If so, I may be wrong with the 'illegal' bit of my previous statement. Anyone versed on the law on here? Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
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That's very interesting. I did look into the legislation a while ago regarding different size wheels/tyres on the same axle, and the only legislation I could find was the old one about not mixing crossply/radial on the same axle. I entirely agree it would be bad practice, but I haven't seen any legal thing. A lot of MoT items seem to be down to MoT regs, not to anything enshrined in law. Would you pass a car with a 17" and a 19" on the same axle (perfectly legal, and a possibility with the standard FR2 spare wheel)?

I have swapped wheels front to back regularly on my last few vehicles ( all 4 x 4's ) when either fronts or rears we're wearing a little bit faster so the wear is evened out on the tyres
Do it when there is 1mm of difference between front & back and swop wheels straight from front to back ie offside rear to offside front - occasionally car feels slightly different but only for a couple of days

Past master wrote:

Would you pass a car with a 17" and a 19" on the same axle (perfectly legal, and a possibility with the standard FR2 spare wheel)?

Just had a look at the MoT rgs on http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/htdocs/m4s04000105.htm
It appears to state that wrongly fitted asymetrical tyres are a fail, but it also states that "an arrow by itself should not be taken to indicate direction of rotation".
This seems to imply that an asymmetrical tyre fitted the wrong way round is a fail, but that a directional tyre on the wrong side is not.

Just saw your last post Steve - yes I agree that it makes perfect sense, but again I can't see any strictly legal basis for that. FR2s are sold with a 17" spare when different size wheels are fitted, or sometimes with the same size wheel but a different size tyre. It must be legal to drive with these, although obviously far from ideal.

Past master wrote:

Just had a look at the MoT rgs on http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/htdocs/m4s04000105.htm
It appears to state that wrongly fitted asymetrical tyres are a fail, but it also states that "an arrow by itself should not be taken to indicate direction of rotation".
This seems to imply that an asymmetrical tyre fitted the wrong way round is a fail, but that a directional tyre on the wrong side is not.

Steve D wrote:

Well, as an MOT tester I know a car will definitely not pass an MOT test with a uni directional or asymmetrical tyre fitted not in accordance with the manufacturers markings on the sidewall and I'm assuming that would make it illegal. Can't quote the exact law that would be broken, if any. I do know that cars can pass the mot test but still be illegal the minute they go on the road though so perhaps the opposite may also apply eg fail the test but be legal to drive on the road. If so, I may be wrong with the 'illegal' bit of my previous statement. Anyone versed on the law on here?

I questioned the wheels being swapped on the same axle on my service's by LR in the past.

They said the reason was to ensure equal wear on the outside edges. As LR's sit quite high, the passenger side edges tend to wear more on the left because these tyres get more grief as we have lots of road islands. So by swapping them round to the other axle, this evens things out and makes tyres last longer.

Maybe a reason why I got nearly 50000 out of my rear 19's and nearly 42000 out of my front 19's. Freelander 2 HSE Lux 2013MY - Barolo Black with Ivory Leather. Alpine DVD - Privacy -Evoque 20" Dynamic Wheels and more to come.........